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Stamps Students Collaborate on Science Fiction Opera

November 11, 2024

Students in Seder Burns’ Digital Image Making class (ARTDES 340.001) will be featured collaborators in an upcoming live performance of a science fiction opera. 

The Stamps students used AI software to create a video that will accompany Mikeila McQueston​’s performance of ​“Handsome Dead Thing,” an aria from her opera, Probable Future Statues, at the School of Music, Theatre, & Dance’s November 18th Student Composer Concert. This science fiction-themed piece is about the sole survivor of a spaceship crash on an alien planet, who attempts to identify creatures and her lost family via bone scans. McQueston, a Pre-Candidate in the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition program at the School of Music, Theatre, & Dance, will perform her composition with piano accompaniment.

In this image created by students using AI software, a figure stands on a fallen log in a large forest, with bird-like creatures flying through the air.
Still of the video created by Digital Image Making students to accompany an excerpt of the sci-fi opera, Probable Future Statues.

After initial brainstorming and landing on a common narrative, the students began by learning to use text-to-image AI software to storyboard the story told in the aria. Then, they learned how to use image-to-video AI software to create video clips. Each student created 18 seconds of video using their own aesthetic interpretation to accompany the song and drive the common narrative.

In this image created by students using AI software, a woman looks up into a source of light, with tears running down her face.
In this image created by students using AI software, a figure, seen from behind walks through a swamp.

Seder Burns, the instructor for the class, couldn’t be happier with the project’s outcome: ​“The science fiction-meets-reality nature of AI video creation lent itself well to the science-fiction-meets-opera. For the students, it’s been a great introduction to opera and an opportunity to see the power of collaboration. Working with a music student on an opera performance is also a great cultural exchange.”

Student Composer Concert Series
8:00 pm, November 18, 2024
McIntosh Theatre, Earl V. Moore Building
1100 Baits Dr, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

The event is free and open to the public, and a livestream will be available.

This project is made possible in part by an Arts Initiative Course Connection Grant, which provided funds to defray the cost of AI software subscriptions.